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Coal County, Oklahoma
Coal County is a county in Oklahoma. The population of the county is 5,925. Major roads US Route 75 Oklahoma State Highway 3 Oklahoma State Highway 31 Oklahoma State Highway 31B Oklahoma State Highway 43 Oklahoma State Highway 48 Oklahoma State Highway 131 Geography Adjacent counties Atoka County (east and south) Hughes County (north) Pittsburg County (northeast) Johnston County (southwest) Pontotoc County (west) Demographics As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the racial composition of the county is: 70.95% White (4,204) 19.66% Native American (1,165) 9.13% Other (541) 0.25% Black or African American (15) 17.8% (1,054) of Coal County residents live below the poverty line. Theft rate statistics Coal County has average rates of Pokemon theft and murder. The county reported 7 Pokemon thefts in 2018, and averages 0.93 murders a year. Pokemon Communities Cities Centrahoma - 97 Coalgate - 1,967 Lehigh - 356 Tupelo - 329 Towns Phillips - 135 Unincorporated communities Cairo Clarita Cottonwood Olney Climate Fun facts * Lehigh began as the first mining camp in what is now Coal County, Oklahoma. During the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Lehigh was a growing settlement which greatly profited from the coal mines surrounding it. However, come the 1910s and 1920s, the demand for coal lessened as railroads switched to oil-powered trains. The mines eventually closed, and in the early 1920s, boll weevils destroyed the cotton crops in the area. Many businesses closed, and people left the town. The Merchants National Bank Building in Lehigh is the only structure that remains from the once prosperous downtown area. * Coal County is in many respects typical of Oklahoma politics: once mainly Democratic, it has become extremely strongly Republican in presidential elections, although even today most voters identify as Democrats. Coal County was not won at the presidential level by a Republican until Richard Nixon did so in 1972. Apart from the 2000 election Republicans have never won Coal County without cleansweeping all seventy-seven counties in the state (as they did against George McGovern and in every election since 2004). In two national Republican landslides Coal County has seen extremely narrow Democratic victories: James M. Cox won the county by twenty-four votes in 1920 and Walter Mondale by twenty-five votes in 1984. The county swung 41 points Republican in the 2008 presidential election, the largest swing of any county (of the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S.) towards either party seen in the entire election. * Mining became a mainstay of the county's economy during the 1870s. The first coal mine opened on Chief Allen Wright's land. The industry activity peaked between 1910 and 1916, but declined sharply after World War I. Many of the mines closed by 1921, due to the refusal of mining companies of the area to unionize. Some mines reopened during World War II, but these closed by 1958, because of the rising cost of refining sulfur out of the coal mined. Agriculture replaced mining as the main economic activity of the county. Even this business encountered severe difficulty in 1921–3, when a boll weevil infestation wiped out the cotton crop. All five banks in the county failed as a result. Category:Oklahoma Counties